1) Mind Control

Comparing the tactics of psychological control of the Antebellum US South and Modern Day Traffickers
~Katie Wong

Baldev, a farmhand from a small village in India finally finished repaying his debt after serving as a modern day indentured servant. But after only a few weeks he asked his former master to take him back.[1] In 2009, teenage girls prostituted by the West Seattle gang member, Deshawn Cash Money Clark, would take the first chance they got to run back to Clark after getting caught by the police and taken to their parents.[2] With the current number of enslaved people numbering in the tens of millions,[3] what causes these people to stay and even return to those that enslaved them? The answer lies in the tactic that has controlled the world’s human slaves for over hundreds of years: psychological control. Most slaves and victims understand the illegality of their situation, yet at Kevin Bales precisely puts it, “force, violence and psychological coercion have convinced them to accept it.”[4] In the time of legal slavery in the United States, southern slave owners took a very public and powerful approach to controlling slaves, ranging from physical violence to separating children from their mother after a single year.[5] Traffickers today still use the broad tactics of violence and isolation to control slaves yet how modern slave owners accomplish this task varies from the past. While the general methods of psychological control used by slave owners has remained the same, because of the switch in legal status of slavery the details and specific tactics have changed.
“Blow after blow was inflicted upon my naked body. When his unrelenting arm grew tired, he stopped and asked if I still insisted I was a freeman. I did, and then the blows were renewed, faster and more energetically than before.”[6] One of the finest distinctions of slavery and the most common method of control is the use of threats and physical violence. In 1849 Soloman Northup was kidnapped from his East Coast home in the United States and brought into the brutal slavery of the south. Insisting upon his freedom, his master swore to “either conquer or kill (me).”[7] The use and threat of violence is a tactic that still continues to define slavery today. Modern victims live under the daily threat of abuse, torture and even death.[8] The difference is that traffickers and modern slave owners keep their actions hidden in the shadows. The change in legality of slavery has pushed the violence into the dark. “They beat me, but only across the back near my kidneys, so it would not hurt my appearance. It was very painful.”[9] Both the slaves of the past and present lived and live with the constantly hovering threat of physical violence. This mode of psychological control has very much remained as painful and repressing as it was in the past. Only the simple detail of its publicity has changed with the legal status of slavery.
In addition to threats of physical violence, slave holders of the past and present both use “examples” to psychologically control their slaves. Masters make examples of specific individuals in order to deter disobedience and running away. In the past, this was usually in the form of extreme beatings or the selling of this slave to someone else known to be especially cruel. “If a slave was convicted of any high misdemeanor, became unmanageable, or evinced a determination to run away, he was brought immediately here, severely whipped, put on board the sloop, carried to Baltimore, and sold to Austin Woolfok, or some other slave trader as a warning to the slaves remaining.”[10] As Frederick Douglas describes, the use of an example was meant to cause a wave of fear to pass over all slaves; their fear the necessary psychological tool employed by their owners. Singling out an individual, while also a type of violence, sends a more powerful psychological message. “Girls have been raped publicly in front of all of us by the Yakuza. This terrorizes other girls… …If a girl was really unmanageable, she was sold by the owner to the Yakuza and we never saw or heard of her again.”[11] In the story of Nu, a former sex slave in Japan, her pimps continued the method of singling out specific examples in order to terrorize all the other girls. In addition to spreading fear, this type of psychological control is also very emotionally disturbing, making it especially powerful. As with the method of threats and physical violence, the use of an example has lasted through time and is still used in a very similar way. The difference lies in the public discipline and selling versus the private underground abuse and questionable disappearances.
Once slaves gain the knowledge necessary in order to escape, whether it be the truth about police officers, foreign language skills, being able to read or simply a phone number, many break away from their captors which is why slave owners and traffickers attempt to keep their slaves ignorant. In the pre-Civil War south, even a slave’s age was kept a secret in order to keep them as unknowledgeable as possible of their surroundings and situation.[12] Slaves were also banned from learning to read and write in fear that it “would spoil the best nigger in the world.”[13] By keeping slaves unaware and uneducated, their masters degraded their humanity, forever holding them in a child-like mental state. Today, slave holders still limit the amount of information seen and kept by their slaves. In many forced prostitution brothels, pimps will destroy any written records held by the girls of their payments against debt. In modern debt bondage cases, many loan sharks charge an unknown percentage of interest. [14] This hidden fact causes men, women and children to remain enslaved for their entire lives. In several occasions, the gaining of knowledge is what frees a slave. “One day I saw a poster about a charity for women… …One day I found a telephone and called the number of the charity… …a Bulgarian came to the phone and asked where I am. SHE SAID SHE WAS COMING FOR ME!!!”[15] Although slave holders of the past and present both withheld information and skills from their slaves, it was much easier to do so in the 1800s. The law made it easy for owners to keep their slaves as ignorant as possible. Today owners must falsify and hide information in order to keep it out of the hands of their slaves.
Masters additionally force their slaves or victims to feel reliant upon them. Slave owners of the past forced their slaves to feel that their owner was their only identity. By taking on the last name of their owner and only being referred to in line with their master, a slave felt as if he or she did not have a personal identity. “They (African slaves in the 1800s) seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man’s slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!”[16] The slave was only something because of the master; there was no life outside of the master’s. In the modern day slave situation, many feel reliant upon their traffickers, pimps, or masters because of language barriers, the false sense of love or family ties. In the case of the gang members of West Side Street Mobb in King County, Washington, the pimps played upon the insecurities of their victims. The gang members would convince girls that they loved them and would take care of them. But in the eyes of the boys, the girls were only good for money.[17] One of Clark’s victims acknowledged that she sold her body out of what she thought was love. “To me, that connection between a pimp and a prostitute was like, you do anything for the person you love.”[18] In another part of our world today in Mauritania, slavery still exists in its most primal form. The lowest of enslaved women feel bonded to their masters as they are the only ones allowed into his house, even if only to be concubines.[19] In all these cases, the only sense of identity that these slaves attain is through what their owners or pimps provide. Many victims feel trapped, completely reliant upon their masters for identity, safety, and even affection.
Masters and traffickers of the past and present also make their slaves and victims feel isolated and alone. In the past, children were mostly kept away from their parents, as in the case of Frederick Douglas, removed from his mother after twelve months of life. “For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.”[20] This separation caused there to be little connection between slave family members, thus isolating slaves from basic human connections and affection as a child. Today, specifically in the world of pimps and their forced prostitutes, pimps and recruiters move girls around the world, keeping them isolated linguistically and culturally. These girls are also made to feel dirty, believing that they are no longer good enough for their families or normal society. These girls are told that they are worthless and damaged and therefore are manipulated into thinking that there is nowhere else for them to go, or anywhere they do go will simply be the same. “When the police came, they said they wouldn’t go… …‘We’ll get nothing but misery. We’ve been sold like this, we’ve become prostitutes. We will not be accepted by society. We won’t go.’”[21] These victims are made to feel as if there is no longer a place for them outside of slavery and thus they are forced into an isolated aspect of society shunned from former friends and family. In other domestic forms of modern slavery, the nannies are kept from speaking to any other people who could jeopardize the situation. These victims are not allowed to talk to anyone but the people who enslaved them. By manipulating the victim into thinking that they deserve to be in the situation or do not have anyone to go to, they are forced to remain in their enslavement. Throughout history, slaves have always been made to believe that there are no other options for them. In the past, if a slave became free they could go north and live in a much less repressing environment. Today, though, society forces many victims to remain enslaved because there is no escape. Everywhere a modern trafficking victim goes, they will have the physical and psychological scars of slavery that society so easily shuns.
Slave owners, whether of the past or present, use many different methods of controlling their slave and victims. From threats of physical violence, past examples, the lack of knowledge, the forcing of reliance and isolation we come to begin to see why many victims remain in their enslavement. And as victims around the globe begin to gain freedom, the psychological damage inflicted by slave holders remains the most difficult cycle to break. Our society continues to suffer the mental wounds passed down from antebellum slavery and modern day trafficking victims live much of their lives in shame. As human rights worker Vivek Pandit of Vidhayak Sansad in India claims, “real liberation takes place in the mind.”[22]

[1] Bales, Kevin. “The Social Psychology of Modern Slavery.” Scientific American, vol. 286 issue 4 (2002): 82
[2] Pulkkinen, Levi. “Alleged West Seattle Pimp goes on trial.” Seattlepi.com, October 6, 2009. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Alleged-West-Seattle-pimp-goes-on-trial-896833.php
[3] Bales, Kevin, Trodd, Zoe, and Williamson, Alex Kent. Modern Slavery: The Secret World of 27 Million People. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009. vii
[4] Bales, Kevin. “The Social Psychology of Modern Slavery.” Scientific American, vol. 286 issue 4 (2002): 86
[5] Douglas, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave.” In The Classic Slave Narratives, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr,.( New York: New American Library, 1987, 2002.) 340
[6] Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Soloman Northup, a Citizen of New York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1997.) 44-45
[7] Ibid 46
[8] Inahushree, Rajan. “Voices from the Void: A Depth Psychological Reconceptualization of Sex Trafficking in Modern-Day India.” Psychotherapy and Politics, vol. 9, issue 2
(2011): 97
[9] “Olga (Israel, 2000).” In To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today’s Slaves, edited by Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.) 121
[10] Douglas, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave.” In The Classic Slave Narratives, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr,.( New York: New American Library, 1987, 2002.) 346
[11] “Nu (Japan, 2000).” In To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today’s Slaves, edited by Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd,. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.) 94
[12] Douglas, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave.” In The Classic Slave Narratives, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr,.( New York: New American Library, 1987, 2002.) 339
[13] Ibid 364
[14] “Munni (India, 2004).” In To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today’s Slaves, edited by Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.) 48
[15] “Maria (Italy, France, and Netherlands, 2002).” In To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today’s Slaves, edited by Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.) 52
[16] Douglas, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave.” In The Classic Slave Narratives, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr,.( New York: New American Library, 1987, 2002.) 354
[17] Pulkkinen, Levi. “Pimp Report: One pleads guilty, another allegedly caught working from jail.” Seattlepi.com, August 4, 2009. http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Pimp-Report-One-pleads-guilty-another-allegedly-1305529.php
[18] Pulkkinen, Levi. “Beacon Hill teen tells of selling her body on Seattle streets.” Seattlepi.com, October 29, 2009.
[19] Crosby, Sondra S., Grodin, Michael A., Shah, Neha, and Blumhofer, Rebecca D. “Clinical Issues in Caring for Former Chattel Slaves.” Journal of Immigrant and Migrant Health, vol. 13 no. 2(2010): 324
[20] Douglas, Frederick. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave.” In The Classic Slave Narratives, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr,.( New York: New American Library, 1987, 2002.) 340
[21] “Rita (India).” In To Plead Our Own Cause: Personal Stories by Today’s Slaves, edited by Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.) 117
[22] Bales, Kevin. “The Social Psychology of Modern Slavery.” Scientific American, vol. 286 issue 4 (2002): 88

2) Judicial Perspective on Slavery

Andrew Sweeney

My research will focus on the majority and dissenting opinions of 2-7 cases in the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I will also include secondary sources analyzing the legal precedent surrounding peonage, slavery, constitutional guarantees of self-determination, ownership and various other legal issues surrounding slavery in both the contemporary and the historical sense. This research would probably come to the conclusion that throughout history the constitutional protections surrounding all of the above have moved in the same direction that legislation was. And the cases surrounding the issues will vary in that they will have different justices and different legal ideas based on the era.
All of this will provide a unique way to look at history through a unique lens. I will add in anecdotal research from online libraries surrounding the Supreme Court opinions, which will hopefully add a great deal of depth to the work. On top of that research, I will look through to find documents on the conditions of peonage to add my own opinion if peonage was in fact a protected act under the constitution. I tend to doubt that I will come to that conclusion.
All of this will hopefully be aided by additional research into the personal opinions of legal scholars on the matter. And while “appeal to authority” is the weakest form of argumentation, these experts generally have spent more time thinking about this subject than anyone else.

3) Slavery From Past to Present

Junyi Cao

My research mostly covered the slavery in the ancient Rome and ancient Egypt. Finding out that the slavery back to the ancient time was chattel but not so violent as we suppose it would had been. It was interesting that back to the old time, Roman and Egyptian mainly enslaved aliens and war captives other than their own kind. The debt bonded slaves of there own nationality also enjoyed the privilege of being democratic. Hence I believe the differences of identities such as nationality, religion and ethnicity are what made the slavery in later time violent and mistreated.

To support my points, i did a lot of research on from different nationality conflicts, religion events and ethnicity discrimination. I'm using different nameable history events to support the three aspects and fulfill the idea of how the slavery is developing in a world-wide general background with all these problems and how did the slavery turned out closely related to violence. In a word, I'm using the history facts to prove that the differences of identity were what really made slaves facing extreme violence and living under fear.

My challenge in this part is that i can hardly connect my idea with the human trafficking that is currently happening. Because most of the international cases are smugglers and victims from the same or close community. I guess i will explain that the traffickers are not necessarily the employers. Also from today's video, it's clear that some smugglers avoid thinking about the future path of the victims.